Weaponizing Instability: What the US Gets Wrong About China’s Wars
How the PLA Turns Domestic Crisis Into Strategic Opportunity
Key Point: The PLA has a history of launching limited wars during periods of internal turmoil; not despite unreadiness, but because of it. For Beijing, war is a political tool to recalibrate legitimacy, not just a military act.
"They weren't ready" is one of the most dangerous ways to misunderstand Chinese military behavior.
In recent debates among US military strategists and China analysts, one recurring argument has emerged with renewed confidence: China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) historically initiates conflict before achieving full combat readiness. Most recently, M. Taylor Fravel's analysis in Foreign Affairs reiterates this point, citing China's military posture in the Korean War (1950), Sino-Indian War (1962), and Sino-Vietnamese War (1979) to argue that today’s internal purges and institutional churn don’t necessarily signal imminent action.
This line of reasoning feels sober, almost reassuring. But it risks missing the point entirely.
The PLA's past wars were not merely premature strikes: they were calculated acts of political warfare, launched under conditions of uncertainty, improvisation, and internal transformation. From a US national security and irregular warfare perspective the takeaway is not that we should relax when we see turbulence within the PLA. Instead, we must interrogate how Beijing historically uses war to recalibrate its domestic legitimacy, strategic position, and elite cohesion, often precisely because of internal disarray.
If we keep asking, "Is the PLA ready?", we will continue to misread the signals.
Why the Readiness Paradigm Took Hold
Fravel's framing appeals to US defense thinkers because it aligns with American strategic culture: war is seen as a culmination of planning, capability development, and logistical preparation. In this view, unreadiness implies deterrability or delay. US planners tend to project this linear model onto China. But the CCP doesn’t always view war as the end of a planning cycle. It sees it as a lever of statecraft to address political disequilibrium. As a result, readiness often lags behind political will.
Understanding this divergence requires examining not just when China has gone to war, but why. Rather than treating military unpreparedness as an anomaly to be explained away, we should recognize it as a feature of Beijing's strategic calculus. The pattern becomes clear when we shift focus from operational readiness to political necessity.
History as Improvisation, Not Template
Fravel’s historical framing is not inaccurate, but it is incomplete. Yes, China fought in Korea, India, and Vietnam without optimal preparation. But framing these conflicts as "exceptions" to a readiness paradigm misses the deeper truth: unreadiness wasn’t the cost of war; it was part of the logic.
Take 1950. Mao launched Chinese intervention in Korea amid deep divisions within the leadership. While Peng Dehuai ultimately supported the decision, helping Mao secure Politburo consensus, he continued to raise grave concerns about logistical weakness, poor equipment, and the army’s readiness. The rationale? Mao’s strategic ambiguity, yes, but more importantly, his desire to consolidate domestic authority in the early PRC, demonstrate ideological resolve and reshape the regional order.
In 1962, the PLA struck India while China was reeling from the Great Leap Forward and international isolation. Once again, it was not tactical confidence that drove the war; it was the need to assert control over disputed territory, shore up Mao's domestic standing, and assert Beijing's credibility in the developing world. The timing - coinciding with the Cuban Missile Crisis - was no accident: Mao likely calculated that global distraction offered a low-risk window for limited escalation.
In 1979, Deng Xiaoping's war with Vietnam was militarily costly and tactically limited. But its true function was strategic: punishing Vietnam, signaling defiance toward the Soviet Union, and re-legitimizing the PLA as an institution after the Cultural Revolution.
In each case, PLA unreadiness was real, but it was not disqualifying. War helped fix the very issues that made the PLA unready to begin with. This is not to deny the operational triggers that often shape timing, such as incursions, clashes, or perceived red-line violations. But in each case, these were catalysts, not root causes. The underlying imperative was political recalibration, not tactical response.
The Pattern That Matters: Crisis as Catalyst
This is the pattern US strategists should watch:
Beijing has historically used limited war not to achieve victory, but to reframe perceived existential threats.
These threats are not always external. In many cases, they are internal: fractured civil-military trust, elite competition, legitimacy crises, or political overreach.
This logic aligns with what PLA doctrinal texts emphasize: war control, strategic space, political dominance, and narrative shaping. Notably, in Unrestricted Warfare, Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui make the case that power lies not in kinetic superiority, but in the ability to redefine the conflict itself. That concept continues through the 2020 Science of Military Strategy, which stresses integrated deterrence and war under informatized conditions - that is, warfare conducted across networked, multi-domain environments where ambiguity, information dominance, and timing are as important as capability. These texts frame conflict not merely as force-on-force confrontation, but as a tool of psychological control, narrative dominance, and system disruption.
This logic also complicates conventional invasion forecasts. Rather than adhering to a long-term, conventional military campaign timeline, particularly regarding Taiwan, Beijing may act opportunistically during periods of internal volatility, even if militarily suboptimal. The relevant question isn’t “When will China be ready?” but “What problem does this war solve for the Party?”
A recent case helps make this tangible. In the wake of China’s economic slowdown and COVID-19 lockdown backlash, Beijing amplified nationalist rhetoric, escalated air incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ, and ramped up information warfare targeting the West. These moves did little to shift material balances, but they served vital internal goals: rallying domestic support, reframing blame for economic strain, and reinforcing Xi’s image as defender of sovereignty. Like earlier wars, the purpose was not victory but control.
Viewed through this lens, recent leadership reshuffles, intensified economic pressures, and tightening of internal discipline under Xi Jinping are more than signs of uncertainty; they are potential precursors to external maneuver.
Why These Wars Stay Limited
The PLA’s preference for limited conflict is not accidental. These wars operate under multiple constraints:
Nuclear deterrence: Particularly against India or US allies, escalation beyond a threshold is unthinkable.
Economic interdependence: Total war would risk regime-threatening economic collapse.
Narrative control: Conflicts must remain “winnable” in propaganda terms.
Political risk: Xi and the Party cannot afford outcomes that threaten elite cohesion or domestic order.
Crucially, these constraints become more binding, not less, during periods of domestic instability. When the regime faces internal pressure, it cannot afford the additional risk of military escalation spiraling beyond its control. This paradox explains why China's limited conflicts have remained limited even when launched from positions of domestic weakness: the very conditions that trigger conflict also enforce restraint.
The CCP’s wars are high-stakes balancing acts: disruptive enough to reset the board, yet calibrated to preserve domestic order, elite cohesion, and economic continuity. The very pressures that provoke conflict also enforce restraint. Some analysts argue Beijing may feel time-pressured by shifting regional balances, such as US force posture in the Pacific, Taiwan’s strengthening identity, or a narrowing military advantage. But even these ‘window of opportunity’ calculations are filtered through the Party’s internal logic; they become urgent when external developments threaten to expose, rather than mask, domestic vulnerability. The balancing act extends across domains: economic stability, elite unity, diplomatic framing, and domestic mobilization. War is just one line in a broader political balancing equation.
Strategic Implications for US Planners
So what does this mean for US national security planners, especially those in irregular warfare, SOF, or strategic competition roles?
Stop reading PLA readiness as a binary signal. Their doctrine and history suggest they are comfortable fighting dirty, early, and confused if the political imperative is strong enough.
Monitor legitimacy triggers, not just troop movements. Specific indicators include:
Intensified anti-corruption campaigns targeting military or provincial elites.
Unexplained disappearances of high-level officials.
Sharp surges in nationalist propaganda.
Mass social unrest, particularly in peripheral regions.
Sustained economic contraction near or below 3% growth - often viewed as a critical floor for maintaining urban employment, regional stability, and the unwritten social contract of “performance legitimacy” - may represent a silent trigger point for domestic risk calculus.
Prepare for coercive signaling under disguise. Small-scale operations, cyber pressure, and information warfare may precede or substitute for conventional force, especially as tools to restore control internally.
Rethink deterrence postures. If conflict is a tool of legitimacy management for Beijing, then fear of tactical loss may not deter them; it may, perversely, invite a limited strike to reshape narratives. The US must balance firmness with carefully calibrated unpredictability. Overly muscular signaling may appear as existential pressure, pushing Beijing toward escalation. At the same time, visible indecision or appeasement risks inviting opportunism. The challenge is credibility without provocation and resilience without concession.
Train for ambiguity. US irregular warfare professionals should study PLA thinking not only to understand how they fight, but how they conceal, signal, and distort. This means shifting beyond conventional wargaming toward scenario planning that incorporates deception, information warfare, and fluid gray-zone signals. SOF teams, for instance, should be trained to operate in environments where intentions are masked, narratives are weaponized, and thresholds for escalation are deliberately obscured. Ambiguity is more than noise; it’s a tactic.
Integrate crisis modeling into IW education. SOF teams should incorporate political stress indicators into early warning models. Instability in China may not be a deterrent; it may be the trigger.
Develop counter-legitimacy narratives. The CCP routinely frames its actions in terms of defending sovereignty, resisting encirclement, and maintaining unity. The US and its allies must preemptively challenge these claims by highlighting Beijing’s strategic revisionism, internal repression, and zero-sum behavior. Xi Jinping’s 19th Party Congress assertion that “the Party leads everything” encapsulates the centrality of legitimacy preservation in China’s system. For Taiwan, this means emphasizing self-determination and peaceful status quo preservation, not confrontation. Narratives should target not just foreign audiences, but disillusioned or skeptical domestic constituencies inside China.
Regional Implications
Neighboring states must also recalibrate their early-warning models. India, for instance, should track elite narratives and economic disruptions, not just troop deployments, when anticipating action on the Line of Actual Control (LAC). ASEAN nations face similar risks of calibrated coercion during periods of Chinese political uncertainty, especially in maritime domains. Taiwan, most of all, must treat domestic Chinese instability as a warning light, not a buffer.
Conclusion: The Wrong Question
Fravel is right that the PLA may not be ready. But that may be irrelevant. History suggests that China doesn't need to be prepared to go to war. It needs a reason.
And often, that reason is internal: a regime survival challenge, a moment of disunity, or a global environment in flux. Today, with China facing economic contraction, youth unemployment, and elite turnover, the conditions for risk-taking are maturing.
The question isn't, "Can they fight now?" It's, "What would conflict help them fix?"
In the context of the current US-China strategic competition, this analysis suggests we are entering a particularly dangerous period where Beijing's domestic pressures may drive external risk-taking, making crisis management and escalation control more critical than ever.
If elite cohesion fractures, if legitimacy wavers, if the domestic equation slips, expect action. Not because China is confident. But because uncertainty through crisis is the very condition in which the Party has historically turned outward.
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